Twist Of Fate
by DelMarch
Summary: AU. Two hurting families meet and help each other heal, until a twist of fate threatens to tear them apart. Ikkaku/Isane, more pairings later, het. Romance, family, friendship, drama, a little bit of angst. 11th Division and 4th Division/Kiyone, but AU.
1. The First Evening

A/N: Just some light romance to take my mind off my current writer's frustration with my other works. Hope you enjoy :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach and I am making no money with those stories.

*

**The First Evening**

"'Ka-ku's got a girl-friend! 'Ka-ku's got a girl-friend!"

"Yachiru, shut it! And Yumichika, stop snickering, you're only encouraging her!"

Isane stared apprehensively at the scene in front of her; maybe it had not been such a good idea to just pop up unannounced like that after all... But, well, she had a car and she knew Ikkaku did not, so she had thought it would be more considerate for her to simply drive the ten minutes it took her to get there, than to call him and arrange some kind of meeting downtown, which would have required him to walk and take a bus and... No, really, it had seemed obvious that she should just hop into her car and drop his notebook at his place, especially since after all she owed him a favour for lending her his notes in the first place.

But now, as she stared at and listened to this tiny hyperactive little girl loudly proclaiming to the entire world that Isane was her brother's girlfriend - which she most certainly was _not_ -, she figured she might have done better indeed to call Ikkaku, or to simply try to find him on the campus the next day...

A low, tired growl of a voice rose from the depths of the sofa:

"Yachiru, shut it, you're embarrassing them."

The little girl immediately quieted down, even though she still had a huge grin on her face.

"Yes, Kenny!"

Standing in the middle of the room and looking very embarrassed indeed, Ikkaku was scowling and furiously rubbing his bald head; Isane noticed with a shy amusement that he was going out of his way to avoid looking at her. Maybe, she wondered, this had something to do with the cooking apron he was wearing? She remembered him mentioning that his mother had died several years earlier; apparently, he had taken over the kitchen duties... With a blush and a smile, she extended her arm and handed his notebook over to him.

"Here, I just wanted to give this back to you. And to thank you so much for lending it to me, I really appreciate it."

He shrugged and grunted:

"Bah, that's nothing. Did... Did you understand everything? It can be a bit, er, cryptic sometimes..."

She stifled a laugh.

"Yes, I noticed. I _think_ I got most of it, though. Maybe a couple of places I'm not sure what you meant, but I'll figure it out eventually, I'm sure."

He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder.

"Wanna come with me to the kitchen? I gotta finish cooking dinner, you can ask me while I work."

She hesitated; surely it would not be appropriate...? But, well, girlfriend or not, she would not mind staying around a bit longer... She smiled:

"Sure."

*

The inquiry over school matters soon turned into a personal discussion, as it often did when they worked together.

"So, how come you missed class anyway?"

Isane scowled: "My father."

Ikkaku looked up from where he was peeling carrots, with a clearly surprised expression on his face. She explained:

"The jerk figured that Kiyone and Hanatarou could take impromptu holidays in the middle of the trimester. He wouldn't bring them back from their week-end. Mom was taken up at the hospital, so I had to go and get them."

She gritted her teeth in annoyance as she briefly remembered the highly unpleasant meeting which had followed; why oh why did their father have to be so irresponsible sometimes? She sighed again:

"Oh well, at least I missed only two lectures. I'd have been very pissed if it had been practicals."

Ikkaku grunted: "Divorce is a pain in the ass, huh?"

She shrugged, and replied a bit timidly:

"Sometimes yes, but at least we're lucky, we've still got both our parents."

"... Ha."

There was an awkward pause after that, which was promptly shattered by the noisy arrival of the little girl, who almost seemed to bounce as she asked loudly:

"'Kaku! Can I recite my poem to you?"

Ikkaku groaned: "Can't you see I'm busy here, Yachiru? Go ask Kenny."

The girl pouted: "He's sleeping."

Ikkaku rolled his eyes; Isane spoke up:

"I can do it, if you want."

She laughed when both brother and sister looked at her askance.

"I do it for my little brother all the time."

With a glance at Ikkaku, who simply shrugged, Yachiru laid her notebook on the table in front of Isane, cleared her throat and began reciting her poem in the same flat, monotonous voice Hanatarou always used in those circumstances. Isane smiled; she knew this poem, she had had to learn it as well when she was younger. The little girl struggled through a couple of places, but in the end Isane was happy to give her back her notebook with a smile and a praise:

"Almost perfect! Well done."

Yachiru beamed at her and Isane felt like a ray of sun had touched her heart. The girl was adorable, even in all her hyperactivity. Her big, warm brown eyes were sparkling with enthusiasm, and her blonde and pink pigtails set high on her head almost seemed to be crackling with electricity. She loved pink, that much was obvious: she was wearing it all over, from her pink bunny slippers to her blue-jeans with pink trimmings, to her white t-shirt with a pink pony on it, to her pink, fuzzy elastic bands in her blonde hair streaked with pink highlights. Funnily enough, she somehow reminded Isane of Kiyone, even though Kiyone absolutely hated pink - it must be the sheer amount of raw energy that she was emitting...

She also apparently shared Kiyone's absolutely lack of manners, and Isane stuttered in surprise when Yachiru asked out of the blue:

"Are you staying for dinner? Pleeease?"

"I.. I can't!"

"Sure you can!" The girl turned to Ikkaku. "Right, 'Kaku? She can stay for dinner, can't she?"

Ikkaku blinked and looked at Isane and Yachiru in turn, and Isane realised that there was a big brother who did not know how to say no to his baby sister. She forced herself not to smile as he grumbled:

"Yeah, sure, whatever, if she wants to stay..."

Yachiru looked back at Isane with a hopeful expression her face, and Isane knew she had already lost the battle - especially since after all, she was not exactly anxious to go back to her lonely flat downtown...

*

As she had expected, Yachiru dominated the conversation over dinner. At first her attention was devoted to Isane, but after learning that Isane was studying to become a microbiologist, and that her hobbies included nothing more interesting that practicing her piano and playing basketball, she seemed to decide that her brother's "girlfriend" was a rather boring person and turned to recounting her own highly exciting life - which seemed to suit everyone else just fine.

At the head of the small table, sat "Kenny" - Kenpachi, as Ikkaku had introduced him -, a huge and taciturn man with a heavily lined face and a long mane of black hair streaked with gray and tied in a low ponytail; he looked at least ten years older than Isane suspected him to really be. She knew that he was a factory worker who constantly did overtime to earn enough money to provide for his three children, and she could see the affection and respect his sons and daughter had for him in the way he never had to repeat a request or an order. Even Yachiru never protested when he told her to change topic or to stop bothering Isane with her insane questions.

Now that she had met Kenpachi, Isane understood Ikkaku a lot better. He was definitely his father's son: same muscular physical build, same gruff and hard-working personality, same scowling face and growling voice that warned people not to mess with them... But also same devotion to their family, and same fierce caring hidden deep under layers of apparent aloofness and indifference. Those were strong men, who fought their way through whatever hardships life threw at them.

Glancing discreetly across the table, Isane could not help but wonder at the difference between those two and the third man of the family. The quiet teenager was as silent as his father and older brother, but that was where the similarities ended. Yumichika, as he had introduced himself to Isane in his soft tenor voice, was as tiny as the other two were tall and strong, as thin as they were muscular, and quite frankly as pretty as they were rugged, with his big, sad eyes, his carefully-maintained bobbed black hair with two thin colourful streaks - one yellow, one red - on the right side of his face, and his tight, trendy clothes. He seemed to come from a completely different mold from the rest of the family, and Isane could not help but wonder what his mother had looked like - surely Yumichika must be taking after her...

All in all, this was a very nice family, and even if their small apartment in the social housing suburbs looked nothing like her spacious downtown flat, her mother's large mansion in the uppity part of town, or her father's villa on the golden coast, it felt almost as much home to her, even after only a couple of hours, as any one of those places. A relaxed feeling of implicit acceptance permeated the air, and even through all the taunting and mock rough-housing that the siblings put each other through, it was clear as day that they deeply enjoyed the time spent in each other's company.

Right now, the topic of conversation, under Yachiru's ever-dominating guidance, had gone back to Ikkaku's (nonexistant) romantic life, and the bald young man was groaning as he chomped through an apple:

"Why don't you bother Yumichika about this, for once? Why don't you ask _him_ about _his_ girlfriends?"

The teenager huffed and rolled his eyes:

"Like I have time for _that_!"

"And what? You think _I_ do?? I'm in college, remember, I've got tons of homework too. And if I get a job -"

"You ain't getting a job."

Isane shivered under the sudden tension that had settled around the table at Kenpachi's slow words. All three siblings had instantly fallen silent; Yachiru and Yumichika were carefully contemplating their own apples, while Ikkaku was scowling as he tried to stare his father down. He opened his mouth as though to say something, but he closed it again with a glance towards Isane, who guessed that he did not want to restart an old family feud in front of a stranger. For the second time tonight, she wished she had not come - or not stayed, at least...

She jumped when Ikkaku abruptly stood up and began gathering the dirty dishes. With slightly trembling hands, she eagerly tried to help, ending up carrying the stack of plates to the kitchen on Ikkaku's heels. As he started to run the hot water, she reclaimed her seat at the small table in the corner. She was not sure what to do: should she offer to do the dishes as thanks for the dinner, or would this insult Ikkaku? She was a guest after all, and guests were not supposed to do chores... right?

A couple of minutes after starting to scrub the dirty plates, Ikkaku let out a long sigh, and grunted:

"Sorry about that."

Isane smiled in relief. "That's okay... Touchy topic, I gather?"

He shrugged: "He says my studies will suffer if I get a job. Says I need to focus only on them for now. Get a good degree, and then a good job."

Isane kept quiet for a minute; she rather agreed with Kenpachi, but she also understood Ikkaku's desire to help his family out. Surely, with only one factory worker's salary to provide for three children, including a college student, finances were bound to be tight.

Eventually, she suggested timidly:

"Maybe you could get a scolarship or something?"

Ikkaku shrugged again: "Already have one. Wouldn't be in college at all without it."

He sighed again, and glanced at the half-closed door before continuing in a hushed voice:

"It's not for me. It's for Yumichika. He's studying sciences right now, but he's really an artist. Did you see Yachiru's clothes? All the frilly stuff on her jeans, and the poney on her shirt? And the way her hair is done?"

Isane nodded, and Ikkaku continued.

"Well, that's Yumichika's doing. Saw his clothes? He did them himself. He salvages old clothes from people left and right and he cuts them up and makes new stuff with them. He spends almost all his free time at school, on one of the theater club's sewing machines, or messing around in the arts department. When he's lucky and there's a free computer in the lab, he even gets down to drawing some of those computer imaging thingies. Anything that's got to do with graphic arts and clothes, he's into it."

Ikkaku scowled, dried his hands on a towel, and went to close the door for good, before returning to his washing.

"Last year, he entered that big competition, and he came out third for the entire country. That entitled him to a full scholarship to attend that school in the capital that he's been dreaming of for the last five years. Best thing in the whole land, apparently."

Ikkaku's voice turned bitter.

"Only problem is, full scholarship ain't really full scholarship apparently. We still had to dish out a nice amount of money, and we couldn't do it. Ken tried to get another credit at the bank, but they wouldn't hear of it. And _he_ wouldn't hear of me taking one and working to pay it off. So... So Yumichika didn't go. He should be there right now, but he ain't. He's studying Sciences instead, like a good little boy, and maybe he'll become a doctor or something..."

Isane figured that this was not a good time to mention that her own mother was a doctor; this was not the point after all. The point was money - something her family had plenty of, and that she had never really thought about until now. She had known for a very long time that she was priviledged, that most other people had it harder than she did, but it was not often that she was directly confronted with poverty and its life-long effects. She thought back to the two children in the living-room, Yachiru and her cute clothes, Yumichika and his fashionable ones: the boy had done all of this? He had talent indeed. How unfair that he should not be able to fulfill his dreams just because of something as trivial as money!

A knock on the door made them both jump. Yachiru's high voice piped up:

"Hey, can I come in?"

Isane rushed to open the door, and looked down at the beaming little girl, who asked without preambles:

"I like you. When are you coming back?"

Isane grinned as she clearly heard Ikkaku spluttering behind her.

* End of chapter one *


	2. An Afternoon At The Movies

**Chapter Two: An Afternoon At The Movies**

As always, Yachiru had her way, and Isane agreed to come back the following week - and then the week after that, and the week after that... Soon enough, a habit was taken, a habit Isane had no problem admitting to herself that she deeply enjoyed. Ikkaku's family was just like him: forbidding at first, but warm at heart and truly engaging once you knew them. She often felt lonely in her downtown flat on those evenings when she was not at basketball practice - even if being alone was the _point_ of her having the apartment in the first place -, and she now looked forward every week to spending one night with her new-found friends.

The first time she showed up with a gift led to a short awkward discussion during which she blushed and stammered a lot as she explained that she could not continue to let them feed her without giving anything back. Kenpachi tried to protest but he relented when Yachiru fell uncharacteriscally silent while her huge eyes grew even bigger as she caught sight of the beautiful cake in Isane's hands. Even Yumichika stared and flushed a little; obviously they did not enjoy such treats very often. Ikkaku, on the other hand, was grinning and giving her the thumbs-up from behind Ken's back.

He brought it up again during their next class together, as they waited for the lecture to begin.

"That was some neat trick you did. Going for Yachiru's stomach, that always works. I swear, that girl has got the biggest sweet tooth I've ever seen!"

Isane smiled:

"You should meet my little brother. I'm sure he could give Yachiru a run for her money on that matter."

"How old is he?"

"Hanatarou? He's ten."

"Two years older than Yachiru?"

"Hm-mm. And Kiyone is a year younger than Yumichika."

"Cool... You should bring them one of these days."

Isane chuckled.

"I'd love to, but they live with my mom, and she won't let me take them out to some strange people's place just like that... Though..."

An idea had just struck her, but she was not sure how to present it.

"I, er, I..."

And here she was, blushing and stammering yet again. Would she _ever_ get out of this habit!? She flushed a bit more as she noticed Ikkaku's little smirk, but his cocky attitude brought her back to her senses and she faked a sneer in return.

"Well, I was _going_ to tell you that Hanatarou and Kiyone will be here this week-end exceptionally, and so I'm taking them to the movies on Saturday afternoon, and I was _going_ to invite you and your family to come along with us, but since you _obviously_ find all this very funny..."

She tried to turn up her nose, but eventually cracked up under Ikkaku's highly amused stare. She stifled a fit of the giggles with the back of her hand, while Ikkaku grinned openly.

After regaining her composure, she explained:

"I'm serious, you know. We're really going to the movies. Would you guys like to come?"

All traces of amusement instantly disappeared from Ikkaku's fierce face as he frowned, flushed very lightly and looked away before grumbling in a low voice:

"I don't think we can."

Isane stared for a moment, utterly nonplussed. She could see that something was going on, but she could not fathom wha- Oh...! She felt herself turning crimson once again as the problem suddenly made itself clear to her mind. Desperately, she scrambled to think of a way to present her obvious solution in an acceptable manner.

"I, er... Oh, fiddlesticks!" She threw all caution to the winds. "Ikkaku, I'm _inviting_ you guys, I'll pay for it. No, wait," she countered quickly as she saw him scowl even more deeply and open his mouth to protest, "please, you know we have the means, so let me do that, okay? In thanks for everything you do for me. Please?"

She knew she was begging by now, and that she was probably making her famous puppy eyes, but she did not care; she was not going to let something as stupid as money ruin a chance for them all to have fun together. Ikkaku threw her a short glance before looking away again, rubbed his head a few times, and finally shrugged and growled:

"Yeah, sure, why not? The kids should like that."

Isane smiled to herself in relief as she sat back in her seat and prepared to listen to the professor who had just entered the classroom.

*

Saturday came, and Isane spent the whole morning anxiously half-expecting a call from Ikkaku cancelling their arrangement. Pride was strong in the young man, and probably in the rest of his family as well, and she was afraid they would weasel out of taking her free gift at the last minute. But her phone remained obediently silent, and she could not help but feel hopeful as she packed her sister and brother in her car and headed downtown.

They had agreed to meet at the fountain in the middle of the main square, and Isane could not stop herself from grinning widely when her little group turned a corner and she caught sight of three familiar figures. Yumichika was sitting on the low wall, reading a book, while Ikkaku was holding Yachiru by the back of her pants as she was attempting to catch some of the water falling from the gargoyles' mouths. As soon as Yumichika spotted them and announced their arrival, though, Yachiru lost all interest in the sparkling water and, jumping off the wall, ran straight into Isane's arms.

Isane introduced her siblings, Ikkaku explained that Kenpachi was doing overtime at the factory again, and all together they headed towards the movie theater, a couple of blocks away. Yachiru and Hanatarou were leading the way, running from shop window to shop window, then came Kiyone and Yumichika who were walking side by side but were apparently ignoring each other, and finally Ikkaku and Isane brought up the rear. After a couple of minutes of comfortable silence, Isane threw a sideways glance at Ikkaku, who caught it and smirked; Isane stifled a laugh in response. She had to admit, the show was rather funny.

Hanatarou was as shy as Yachiru was bubbly, and it was obvious, just by looking at his perplexed and slightly terrified face as he allowed Yachiru to drag him from place to place, that he was wondering what kind of natural disaster had suddenly befallen him. Once or twice he managed to shoot a rather panicked glance at his oldest sister, who only waved and smiled in return, silently encouraging him to participate in Yachiru's antics. She did not want him to grow up as socially awkward and reserved as she herself had, and maybe the company of the hyperactive little girl would help him loosen up a bit, even if only for a few hours.

As for Kiyone, she was as brash and grungy-looking as Yumichika was proper and neat. She constantly looked like she was about to bite the head off the next person who would dare talking to her, though Isane knew this to be - mostly - an act. She wore black, baggy sweat pants and a t-shirt that hung loosely on her small frame, while her short sandy hair looked like it had not been submitted to the care of a comb or a brush for quite some time - an effect actually achieved through a daily lengthy and careful application of gel, as Isane knew only too well. She formed quite a contrast indeed with Yumichika, and the two looked for all the world like a pair of cats - an angry, scruffy wild one, and a sleek, posh one - sizing each other up and trying to decide whether to make friends or tear each other's eyes out.

They arrived early enough at the movie theater, which was a good thing considering how long it took them to settle down.

"I wanna sit next to you!" That was Yachiru, shouting at the top of her voice while bouncing on the balls of her feet and pulling shamelessly on Isane's right hand.

"Me too..." whined Hanatarou as he gently grasped her left hand.

"Me three," whispered Ikkaku in her ear as he bent down to unglue his little sister from the young woman's arm. Isane blushed; was Ikkaku... coming on to her?? A small smile forced itself on her lips at this thought.

Eventually, she settled down with a kid on each side of her, a mega-bucket of pop-corn on her knees, and Ikkaku on Yachiru's other side. Yumichika had gone off a few minutes earlier, complaining that the noise and the commotion were preventing him from reading, at which point Kiyone had asked him what he was reading anyway, in a tone that someone else might have used to declare war on a neighbouring country. Her behaviour had changed completely and instantly upon discovering that his book was the latest vulgarisation essay by her favourite astrophysician, and now the two teens were sitting a couple of rows away, animatedly discussing the principles and potential paradoxes of time travel.

The movie went quite well, if one excepted Yachiru's near-choking on a popcorn kernel, Hanatarou's whimpering into his sister's arm during the more tension-filled parts of the show, and the inevitable pee breaks that both kids ended up having to request after downing what seemed like liters of soda in barely half-an-hour. The good side of it was that, for some mystifying reason, Hanatarou completely took to Ikkaku after the young man accompanied him to the toilets, which meant that from then on, Isane and Ikkaku could equally share the baby-sitting duties.

After the movie, they all went to the tea shop for an impromptu juice, cake and ice-cream party that everyone highly enjoyed, even grumpy Kiyone who for once was forgetting to be grumpy, so enthused was she by the opportunity to share her passion for science with someone her age. Isane did try to refuse a second round of cake by timidly protesting that she could not afford to put on any more weight, but Ikkaku's hushed smirking reply that obviously her body knew exactly how to spread the weight for best effect effectively shut her up as her face threatened to burn off from embarassment and, admittedly, pride - though she _was_ relieved that the younger ones had not heard any of this!

They ended the afternoon with a visit to the central park's playground, where Yachiru immediately dragged a not-so-terrified-anymore Hanatarou all over her favourite stations. The teenagers headed for a bench in one of the more secluded areas and proceeded to draw weird-looking diagrams in the dirt with sticks - or maybe they were playing tic-tac-toe, Isane was not quite sure. As for Isane herself, she sat on another bench with Ikkaku, one that allowed them a good view of most of the playground, so they could always keep an eye on the blonde-and-pink-haired terror and her hesitant partner.

Ikkaku crossed his hands behind his head, sat back and sighed deeply.

"Well, that was nice!"

He shot a genuine smile to Isane. "Thank you for everything."

She grinned back. "You're welcome! ... Thank you for coming. I, er, I was a bit afraid you would bail out, to be honest."

She flushed a little as Ikkaku frowned briefly and looked away.

"Yeah, well... I _did_ think of it, but... I didn't wanna do that to the kids. They deserve a break once in a while."

Isane smiled.

"Yes, they do... Kiyone and Hanatarou were not too happy at first when I told them we'd be going with you guys, but I think they've changed their minds by now."

Ikkaku smirked. "No kidding!"

Isane chuckled, before automatically checking on her little brother, and then on her sister. She turned her head back when Ikkaku asked casually:

"So, how does the custody arrangement work anyway? They are not supposed to be here on week-ends if I understand well?"

Isane sighed.

"Yes, technically, they are supposed to spend every week-end and half the holidays with our dad. He often skips out on them though. He's got a good excuse this time, but usually he just calls a day or two before to say he can't take them."

No matter how she tried to prevent it from happening, her voice turned bitter as she spoke, and she was not surprised when Ikkaku remarked:

"You're pretty mad at him, huh?"

She shrugged as she stared at her knees.

"He's... unreliable. And he can be quite insensitive."

She glanced at Ikkaku sideways, and was touched to see him looking at her with a serious, open expression on his usually taciturn face. She hesitated - she had not talked about this for so long, ever since she had lost contact with her high school best friend...

"I... The kids... They don't remember- if they even understood back then. But I understood all right, and I remember. Dad..." She sighed. "Dad is a skirt-chaser - always was. He was never faithtful to Mom. He got caught several times, and every time he would promise that it was the last time, that it would never happen again. But it always did, and each time she found out, it would break Mom's heart. But she would always take him back anyway. Until the last time; she'd been going through a real tough time at the clinic, and when Dad went off with his last conquest instead of supporting her, she decided she'd had enough, and she asked for a divorce."

Tears blurred Isane's vision as she remembered those dark days when her mother would cry herself to sleep every night. The beautiful, ever-smiling woman had turned into a sad, empty shell as she exhausted herself trying to cope with a hectic professional life, the end of her marriage, and the care of three children whom she wanted to protect from everything that was going wrong in her own life. Isane had almost been an adult by then, she had tried her best to help her mother, as she had done ever since she was a little kid, but she could not replace a stable, trusty companion - something her mother had never had.

She wiped her tears with the tip of her fingers and sniffled discreetly before continuing:

"I have to grant it to him though, Dad was decent during the divorce procedure. He never contested the multiple adultery, and he never tried to take the kids from Mom - it would have killed her to lose Kiyone and Hanatarou. I think he realised he would be a lousy single father anyway, and that he would be much better off having them only a few days here and there... So that's how it goes. Or how it's supposed to go, at least."

Isane shrugged again, and pulled her handbag closer to look for a handkerchief. She quietly blew her nose - and then jumped ever so slighty as a big, warm hand settled between her shoulder blades and began to gently rub her back. She flushed a little and thought about withdrawing, but... Well, she could do with some comfort right now, and... This was nice, really... Her heart fluttered when Ikkaku sidled closer to her, and his hand moved to her arm opposite from where he was sitting; she sat back, leaned sideways and quietly laid her head on his shoulder. This felt awkward and yet _so right_ at the same time...

She smiled as his whole chest rumbled when he asked:

"One thing I don't get, though... If they aren't here during the week-ends, and you stay at your flat during the week, then you don't get to see them often, right?"

Isane sighed dejectedly and instinctively burrowed her face a bit deeper into his shoulder.

"Kiyone... Mom and Kiyone, they don't really get along well... Kiyone - she's angry, you know, angry at Dad, at Mom, at everyone. I think deep down she knows they didn't do it just to hurt her, but, well, it still hurts, and she doesn't know how to deal with that. And me... I used to try and mediate between her and Mom, and honestly, it was driving me crazy. I was starting to have those nightmares, and I wasn't eating right. When I almost failed my finals last year, Mom decided I needed to get away, to focus on my studies, and she got me the flat."

Isane's head bobbed as Ikkaku snorted sarcastically.

"Your mom sounds like Ken: 'focus on your studies', blah blah blah. Like it's more important than our families or something."

His voice was bitter in Isane's ears; she reached out, grabbed his hand, and squeezed it tightly. A strange mix of sadness and relief pierced her heart as he held on to her fingers. Together, in silence, they watched as Yachiru did cartwheels, walked on her hands, and encouraged Hanatarou to climb to the top of every single piece of equipment on the playground.

Eventually, time came for Ikkaku and his siblings to go and catch their bus ride home, if they wanted to be on time for dinner. Isane would have gladly driven them home, but all six of them would not fit in her car, and she did not want to leave her brother and sister alone downtown even for twenty minutes; they would not be in any danger whatsoever, but she still knew she would never hear the end of it if her mother heard about it.

"You're coming again to eat with us next week, right?"

Isane looked down into Yachiru's big anxious eyes, and smiled widely as she ran her fingers through a pinkish ponytail.

"Yes I am. What do you want me to bring you this time?"

Yachiru brought her index finger to her lips as a very unusual perplexed expression painted itself on her face. She frowned for a moment until finally her eyes lit up and she declared in an inspired voice:

"Ice-cream!"

Isane burst out laughing, Ikkaku snickered, Hanatarou giggled, and even the teenagers took time out of their exchanging email addresses to roll their eyes even as they let out a chuckle or two.

** End of chapter two **


End file.
